Where we stand

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*Organise the left to beat back the Tories' attacks! No to attacks on union rights; defend the picket line; no state interference in our unions! No to any wage curbs. Labour must support all struggles for better living standards and conditions. *Wage rises should at the very least keep up with price, increases. For a price index calculated by working class organisations, as the basis for clauses in all wage agreements to provide automatic monthly rises in line with the true cost of living for the working class. The same inflation-proofing should apply to state benefits, grants and pensions. *Fight for improvements in the social services, and against cuts. Protection for those services against inflation by automatic inflation-proofing of expenditure. For occupations and supporting strike action *End unemployment. Cut hours, not jobs. Fight for a 35 hour week and an end to overtime. Demand work-sharing without loss of pay. Organise the unemployed:- campaign for a programme of useful public works to create new jobs for the unem"Defend all jobs! Open the books of those firms that threaten closure or redundancies, along with those of their suppliers and bankers, to elected trade union committees. For occupation and blacking action to halt the closures. For nationalisation without compensation under workers' management. *Make the bosses pay, not the working class. Millions for hospitals, not a penny for 'defence'! Nationalise the banks and financial institutions, without compensatiol.. End the interest burden on council housing and other public services.

*Scrap all immigration controls. Racel is not a problem: racism is. The tabour movement must mobilise to drive the fascists off the streets. Purge racists from positions in the labour movement. Organise full support for black self-defence. Build *The capitalist police are an enemy for the working class. Support all demands to weaken them as a bosses' striking force: dissolution of special squads (SPG, Special Branch, MI5, etc), public accoun*Free abortion on demand. Women's equal right to work and full equality for women. Defend and extend free state ni. sery and childcare provision. *Against attacks on gays by the state: abolish all laws which discriminate against lesbians and gay men; for the right of the gay community to organise *The Irish people - as a whole - should have the right to determine their own future. Get the British troops out now! Repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Political status for Irish Republican prisoners as *The black working people of South Africa should get full support from the British labour movement for their strikes, struggles and armed combat against the white supremacist regime. South African goods *It is essential to achieve the fullest democracy in the labour movement. Automatic reselection of MPs during each Parliament and the election by annual conference of party leaders. Annual election of all trade union officials, who should be paid the *The chaos, waste, human suffering and misery of capitalism now - in Britain and throughout the world - show the urgent need to establish rational, democratic, human control over the economy, to make the decisive sectors of industry social property, under workers' control. The strength of the labour movement lies in the rank and file. Our perspective must be working class action to raze the capitalist system down to its foundations, and to Where to find put a working class socialist alternative in its place -The an are and to doe system and waiting for crumbs from the tables of rather than having our representatives run the join or affiliate, write to Chris Richardson, Devonshire Promenade, Lenton, Notting('US hands off!')

form in political tendencies for which there is still hope of revival and renewal One of the four pages of the latest Fighting Worker is given over to an article on 'Why we defend the Soviet Union'.

The article is worth discussing because its approach is typical of to defend jobs and services.

sided picture of the Soviet Union from the anti-communist propaganda with which the government and media bombard us.

Against that picture of "dissiployed.

' 'lack of democracy " ' (RWL's scare-quotes), they set their OWI "There is no unemployment in the Soviet Union-. every Soviet citizen is assured of housing, and rent is rarely more than $10 or $20 a month. •Health care is available to everyone. Basic groceries sell for pennies... Education is completely free.

While capitalism is wasteful, 'the Soviet economy does not *Freeze rent and rates.

undergo these constant ups and downs of boom and bust, does not require layoffs to stay on keel, and has been able to transform an impoverished agricultural country into one of the world's most technologically workers' defence squads. advanced countries in under half La century.

There is, however, a bureaucracy, which arose from the isolation of the workers' revolution in backward Russia. It is tabitity, etc. "repressive" and has "impeded" the economic progress.

So the USSR is only halfway to socialism: "the workers of the Soviet Union have already won half the battle, the social revolution, which nationalised and affirm their stand publicly. and collectivised the economy.

Now they need a political revolution to overthrow the bureaucracy and re-establish workers' democracy"

Much of this RWL account is a matter of urgency. simply lies or at best half-truths.

There is unemployment in the USSR. Workers sacked for being rebellious and class-consciousness do not get reemployed. In some East Euroand services should be blacked. pean countries with similar systems to the USSR, like Yugoslavia, unemployment is high even by present-day capitalist standards.

True. the Kremlin bureaucracy officially denies the existaverage for the trade. ence of unemployment - and so, of course, there is no dole.

Rents are low in the USSR.

But for the workers housing is low-quality and incredibly cramped - while the bureaucrats have luxury flats and country houses.

SCOTLAND Edinburgh.

Contact: Dave, 229-45!

Glasgow. Contact CrooKe, 63 Dixon G42.

NORTH WEST Campaign Hyndburn.

Contact: Accrington for Gay Liverpool.

Contact: 7336663.

Rights ranchester.

Contact: Tony, 273 SO is sold at Grass Books, Newton St., dilly.

Stocknort Comact: 40 Fox St, n NG7 2DS. Phone 061-429 € I1.

Star Ave 5691. Roots Piccadgley. Wirral.

Contact: Lol Duffy, 3 St. James Court, Victoria Rd., New Brighton, Merseyside.

YORKSHIRE EAST Durham.

Contact: Andy, 64088. SO is sold at Community Co-op, New Elvet.

Halifax.

Contact: 52156. 30 is sold at Hebden Bridge Books. Harrogate Contact: Dan, Huddersfieid.

Contact: Alan Brooke, 59 Magdale, Honley, HD7 2LX Hull.

Contact: c/o 28 Middle Lane, London N8.

Leeds Contact: Garth, 623322. Sheffield.

Contact Rob, 589307 York.

Contact: 414118. MIDLANDS Birmingham.

Contact: Godfrey Webster, 169 Barclay Rd., Bearswood. Smethwick.

Coventry. Contact: 75623. SO is sold Wedge Bookshop.

Leicester.

Contact: Phil, 857908. SO is sold at Blackthorne Northampton.

Contact: Ross, Nottingham.

Contact: Pete, 585640. Keith, at the

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Socialist Organise: Near: 998 7zz

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quite a wide section of the Left., the article begins, Americal, get a one-